Hot dog toppings can be a thorny subject — maybe not up there with politics or religion, but close — so, if Martha Stewart, the doyen of the lifestyle world, chimes in on the subject, there’s bound to be a hubbub. When she posted on Instagram about Chicago-style hot dogs, she mentioned her topping rule that she won’t break and got some of her followers a bit riled up. The lifestyle entreprenuer isn’t one to hold back about her dislikes, whether it’s aprons or ingredient fads, like truffle oil, which Stewart detests because, she says, it’s synthetic and clings to your taste buds.
So, when she listed the standard Chicago hot dog toppings — dill pickles, tomatoes, chopped onion, sweet relish, yellow mustard, sport peppers, and celery salt — she was clear about one thing. “Beyond that, there’s really only one steadfast rule — no ketchup,” she wrote. The backlash came quickly with a poster insisting ketchup belongs on all hot dogs, with others agreeing with Stewart that ketchup is a non-starter. But, did Stewart mean she was anti-ketchup on all hot dogs?
To add ketchup or not to add ketchup?
Perhaps Martha Stewart was specifically talking about how she prefers her Chicago-style dogs, which are traditionally all-beef and served on seeded buns, with a garden’s worth of toppings, but never ketchup. In order to figure out this conundrum that’s causing such a stir, we need to dig a bit deeper and go back to yet another Instagram post from 2024. In this one, Stewart lists her favorite hot dog toppings, and manages to foment further controversy. She says she likes her hot dogs with “the works,” that is, “bacon, ketchup, relish, sauerkraut, mustard.”
That’s right, she definitely mentions ketchup. The bacon may be her most unconventional hot dog topping choice, but it’s definitely not as off-kilter as a fried egg or peanut butter. On Instagram, there were a slew of responses questioning her choices, mostly about using ketchup. So, either Stewart has soured on the red stuff in just a year, or she was specifically talking about Chicago-style hot dogs. Either way, she’s entered the ranks on the great ketchup-on-hot-dogs debate that’s been raging for years, possibly since the 1800s, when ketchup first became a hot dog condiment. But whether Stewart is anti-ketchup or pro is also still up for debate.
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